Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday December 13, 2012 @03:09PM
from the who's-been-nice-to-whom dept.

New submitter Sebolains writes "Unlike previous years, NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) has decided to use Bing maps to track Santa's journey as he goes around the world delivering presents. Starting Christmas eve, one will be able to go to the official NORAD Santa tracking site and use Bing maps to see where Santa is delivering presents at that time. In previous years, NORAD has always gone for Google maps to track Saint Nick. The reason for this switch were not disclosed, but since nearly 25 million people are expected to use this tool come this Christmas, this will definitely benefit Bing in the ongoing competition for online map applications."

The mayans predicted the disaster that is Apple maps. The end of the era is due to Santa using his iPhone to navigate and strays into NK airspace, being mistaken for a US spyplane and swiftly shot down.

"No presents this year, little Timmy. Also, I just got off the phone with the Australian Authorities who said they found Santa dead in Murray Sunset National Park [slashdot.org]. Unfortunately it looks like Santa had a new iPhone for navigation and was forced to eat eight of his reindeer. Then there was apparently a struggle between him and the last reindeer. After several blows, it broke free and eventually flew off to leave Santa to bleed out in the dirt from gory antler wounds. These are sad times but we still have each other, just no more frivolous Christmas gifts -- ever again!"

Click on that link anyway. It includes a search for "airport." When I did it originally, it came up with Los Angeles International as the only result. Clicking on it again to make sure the zoom level is the same shows me Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia as the top hit, followed by San Fransisco International Airport. At least Google's got both coasts covered?

It's weird because there's a "Denver Airport" place marker on Google Maps, but I

Right, that's zoomed in - you could see the shape of it also on the image I linked. But you couldn't see any sign that shape was the airport - if you were a traveller you would not know where to zoom in, when I travel I just zoom out from the city and search for "Airport" all the time. If you zoom out on your link you'll find that none of the search results are at that location although at least they are in the same city!

I've never used them for navigation but Bing maps(furnished by Nokia I believe) have much better aeriel photos. I can see my house from 6 angles on Bing, which is mostly blocked by a large tree on Google. That being said I still use Google maps for pretty much everything else just because I'm used to it.

You can do multiple angles on the satellite images on google maps. It is not as intuitive as Bing, but you have to drag 'N" that surrounds the Pan tool to the different cardinal directions to get it to rotate. I will agree with you though that Bing's aerial images are better (at least in my experience).

I've never used them for navigation but Bing maps(furnished by Nokia I believe) have much better aeriel photos. I can see my house from 6 angles on Bing, which is mostly blocked by a large tree on Google. That being said I still use Google maps for pretty much everything else just because I'm used to it.

You know you really need to step away from the computer and get outside more if seeing your own house on the screen makes you so happy!

their data may be ok but their software that interfaces it is horribly out of date, it would have been acceptable during the era of streets and trips '97

with google maps i can put a search string (such as a business name town and state; or even something more generic like Gas town state) in as a destination address and it will automatically retrieve the address if it has it, if there are multiple matches it pops up a (did you mean) dialog then plugs them in for you.

I haven't coded to either in about two years, but at the time Bing maps had superior APIs and were much nicer to work with from the dev standpoint. Quality of the maps themselves were pretty comparable. In our app we used Bing for that reason (nicer APIs).

NORAD, using Microsoft products... Well, at least we know how the world ends.

The software worries you, but not the fact that they spend their resources to fictionally track a fictional character, possibly making gullible people (children) believe it's real? Makes you wonder what other information they fake, if you're a conspiracy theorist at least.:)

The story prompted me to look at bing maps. Very first direction request produced a poor route. When dragging the route to change it gives less time and distance, you know it's not the source to use! There is no way to reset a drag! etc. etc. I'll stick with google.

It's much better now, but for a while I had a heck of a time with Google Maps crashing where Bing Maps worked great. This was in Google Chrome... on Linux. I use both now, and the Google Maps app on my Android phone is getting laggy and crashy enough that I put Bing on it as backup. Still like the Google Maps interface better on Android though.

Re:FSM uses Google mapsBut what kind of tablet does God use?.
Yeah, but I want to find a good high resolution picture of Moses coming down the mountain and zoom in using CSI super-resolution-zoom capabilities and find out what kind of tablet he used to read those ten commandments on. If that brand of tablet was good enough for God, it ought to be good enough for me to give out as presents this year, right?;>)

Santa is a completely fictitious figure who does not go flying around on Christmas Eve! And NORAD is not tracking a real thing! And anyone, can make up a "track Santa" map application! WTF? If having a "track Santa" map is important to Google, I'm sure they can create just that. This story makes no sense at all.

NORAD has been doing this tracking Santa gimmick annually since the 50's, well before just anyone could make a map app, when a published wrong number caused kids to call them instead of a department store. The base commander who answered the first calls had a sense of humor, liked children, and thought fast enough on his feet to give a "tracking report". It gives people serving in uniform a chance to talk to citizens they're protecting while on duty on a holiday and vice-versa. I suppose you would have yell

I suppose you would have yelled at them to stop wasting your time with nonsense?

LOL! I have no idea where you got that from! That's too funny!

For you, I'll make my point very, very simple: Maybe this is a popular map but NORAD does not own "Santa" or the idea that Santa flies around on Christmas Eve. Also, because the "data" is fictitious, they don't actually own "Santa's track data". With me so far?

So, if this "map" was important to Google, nothing can stop them from creating their own "map of Santa's travel". So there is no actual problem for Google. Hence, this story is k

NORAD has been doing this tracking Santa gimmick annually since the 50's.... It gives people serving in uniform a chance to talk to citizens they're protecting while on duty on a holiday and vice-versa.

You are, apparently, unaware that they don't do this any more. The Bing map doesn't allow conversations between service members and the public. That's all done with and has been for quite a while. I really don't know why you are upset.

You are, apparently, unaware that you have three options when you don't know what you are talking about.

A) Don't talk.
B) Talk anyways, but make it clear that you are guessing and making assumptions.
C) Talk anyways, but act like you know what you are talking about.

You blew right through both A and B and went right to C, the one that proves that you care more about looking like you know what you are talking about, than actually knowing what you are talking about.

Gee, thanks! That's so very, very kind of you to help a poor, misguided individual such as myself to improve himself. I'm so glad you are here to impart your incredible wisdom to those less fortunate. Truly, I am so very grateful. I hope you can hang around and continue to help me in all my posting endeavors. Once again, you have my deep and undying gratitude for your careful, thoughtful and detailed instructions. I really don't know what I would do without your tremendous assistance. Thanks again!

A little less impressed with Google maps when it didn't have the TOWN i was looking for listed. Bing and Mapquest were both able to show me but Google comes up with nada. Tough to find the cars hidden in barns hidden in the middle of wheat fields when one has no clue where the town in the ad is at for the start point! To be fair they all found the actual gravel road and Bing also lists it as next city over. Google just doesn't label or recognize the small old town nearest it.

A little less impressed with Google maps when it didn't have the TOWN i was looking for listed. Bing and Mapquest were both able to show me but Google comes up with nada. Tough to find the cars hidden in barns hidden in the middle of wheat fields when one has no clue where the town in the ad is at for the start point! To be fair they all found the actual gravel road and Bing also lists it as next city over. Google just doesn't label or recognize the small old town nearest it.

I think we shouldn't have a corporate tax at all, most finance experts agrees that they don't make sense (liberal, conservative, whatever)...they just make for good politics. I'd much rather make the tax on corporations 0 in the U.S. and hike the top tax brackets, it makes tons of economic sense. Billions are sitting off shore because of the corporate tax, it could all come home if it were 0 and spur job growth and people using the U.S. as a tax haven rather than vice-versa.

If there is no corporate tax then a lot of money will stay within the corporation, to be spent on "corporate" perks.Did you think that the high-up executables pay for their private jets [airliners.net] with their own money?

If you think that is the worse thing that google could do, then I'm glad I don't live in your glass house.

I provided a recent example that was discussed on slashdot.Where exactly did I say it was the worst thing they could do, or has done?

That change is so small, and considering the public that used google, a smart change.

Look at the big picture.Google have now demonstrated that they are able and willing to manipulate search results according to their agendas.Everybody complains about biased news outlets trying to manipulate public opinion and perception. And yet, when the largest search engine, run by an advertisement company (Google's latest financial filings sh

I didn't know Bing was a map application. I thought Bing was that guy that was tap dancing with Danny F**king Kaye on the hap-hap-happiest Christmas ever with those jolly bunch of a**holes at the Griswold's?:-)

People make fun of Bing, but Bing Maps, images and video searches are all excellent, in some ways better than Google...it's in text search Google hands down beats the snot out of Microsoft, since that's what I mostly search for I use Google...but I wouldn't laugh at Bing, it's fairly good in it's non-core elements.

Who's Bing? What's Bing? Where's Bing? Where's Santa bing? . Sounds like a bunch of questions to ask on G'oogle!.(And for the reporters hiding amongst us, also remember to 'oogle the existential question "Why is Bing?" and the temporal question "When is Bing?")